re, and she was glad.

II

Very different, however, at three in the afternoon. Now she sat in her
high black chair waiting for Roddy Seddon. Very difficult now to imagine
that early discourage of the morning. Magnificent now with her black
dress and flashing eyes and white hair, waiting for Roddy Seddon.

This that she had long planned was at length to come to pass. Roddy
Seddon was to be united to the Beaminster family, never again to be
separated from it.

Of Rachel she thought not at all. She had never liked Rachel; indeed it
was a more positive feeling than that. Alone of all the family was
Rachel still in rebellion; even the Duke, although he was so often
abroad or in the country (he hated London), was submissive enough when
he was with them. But Rachel the old woman knew that she had not
touched.

Frightened--yes. The girl hated that evening half-hour and would give a
great deal to avoid it, but the terror that she showed did not bring her
any closer to her grandmother's power; she stood outside and away.

The Duchess had attempted to influence the girl's brain, to catch some
trait, some preference, some dislike, that she could hold and use.

Still Rachel's soul was beyond her grasp, beyond even her guessing at.
But she knew Roddy Seddon--she knew Roddy Seddon as no one knew him. And
Roddy Seddon knew her.

Even when he was a boy he had known her as no one else knew her. He had
seen through all her embroideries and disguises, had known where she was
theatrical and why she was so, had discovered her plots and prides, her
defeats and victories--and together they two, Pagan to the very bone of
them, had laughed at a credulous, superstitious world.

The London that knew Roddy Seddon thought him a country bumpkin with
dissipated tastes and an amiable heart. But she knew him better than
that. He was not clever--no. He was amazingly innocent of books, he had
no intellectual attainments whatever--yet had he received any kind of
education, she knew that he might have had one of the finest brains in
the country.

He had preferred dogs and horses and the simple enjoyments of his
sensations.

Bowing to the outward rules and laws of the modern world he was less
modern than anyone she had ever known.

Pagan--root and branch Pagan. In his simplicities, in his complexities,
in his moralities and immoralities, in his kindnesses and
cruelties--Pagan.

When they were together it was astonishing the number of trapp